


A Kiss For Every Occasion

by CatsDog



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Anticipation, Ballroom Dancing, Cute, Desire, F/M, Fluff, Kissing, Promises, Romance, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 12:16:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5416670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatsDog/pseuds/CatsDog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While trying to make heads or tails of the Orlesian customs at the Winter Palace, Solas and Elanna Lavellan share a private, intimate moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Kiss For Every Occasion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [My Angel](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=My+Angel).



Some stayed in the main ballroom, others poured out into the rotunda and Elanna could find no rhyme or reason behind any of it. She knew that she needed to escape the sweltering main hall, the heat swelling and churning as it radiated off all the gathered bodies. The inside was too thick, too crowded, too Shem, she decided, and so spilled out into the rotunda with the others, all but gasping for air as the other nobles produced fans to cool themselves or immediately turned to their predestined circles where they laughed and joked among one another.

Elanna tugged at the collar of her coat, hoping for some air. All around her the masked Shems were consumed by court gossip and though she thought she may simply be acting naive, she felt as though many of them were gawking at her as she passed.

In Skyhold they had practiced and drilled her for weeks, in largely the same way one would train for an upcoming battle, all in a desperate gambit to prepare the Dalish Inquisitor for her first step into Orlesian high society. The tutors and the dance instructors and all the others that had assembled had fretted and gritted their teeth at the thought of unleashing her on the Winter Palace, insisting that she must first experience the smaller balls and festivities to become acquainted. 

Her Antivan dance instructor had insisted that one is given a rowboat before they are expected to captain a ship. Elanna had liked that analogy, though reluctantly agreed with Josephine when the matter of time was brought up. The civilized world was watching and preparing themselves for the upcoming ball at the Winter Palace, there would be no one who would schedule their own events to interfere.

The Inquisitor had readied herself for the steps and the pleasantries. She had readied herself for the sights and the sounds, even if the sheer volume of it all would have been impossible to properly prepare for. What had taken her so entirely off guard, however, was how every little thing that made bile rise in her throat about Shems seemed to be on display. They had no shame, no sense that they were the walking embodiment of every trait the People found repulsive.

Her time among the Shems taught her that they hardly cared what the Dalish thought of them, but it did not change the surprise to see nearly every stereotype on display, the culture shock hitting her harder than she’d felt since her Keeper had first sent her to the Temple of Sacred Ashes.

She did her best to keep her distance even in the throng of bodies seeking the crisp, cool air of the gardens. As the rotunda opened into a wide space to accomodate the guests the nobility began to split into their groups. Servants and attendants, usually Elves, were waiting with towels to dab at gathered sweat and refreshments of mints, wine, and tea.

Those servants were the most infuriating of all. There should have been a kinship, Elanna thought, if only in a shared glance. Instead the lowest rungs of high society sneered at her with confusion and sometimes even contempt. She knew at once the source of their dubious glares, she realized with a jolt. They shook their heads at the filthy heathen, the Dalish that did not know her place. They had figured it all out, sliding easily into their role subservient to the masked attendees and thus did not care or want for anything.

The realization was sickening in its own way and each silly Shem serving flat ear with their pointed, satin shoes caused her to throw her hands in the air in disgust. Elanna needed out, needed to escape, needed to breathe.

She heard the name “Inquisitor,” called out as she passed and underneath the swell of voices she was vaguely certain it was coming from Cassandra. The Seeker, it seemed, was the only person at the ball who wanted to be there less than her. Whatever she wanted to talk about it would have to wait.

Pretending as though she didn’t hear, Elanna continued down marble floors and steps, past the threshold until she was out in the gardens. The cold air hit her skin immediately and seemed to turn her sweat into crystals. To her own surprise she audibly sighed, the tension disappearing from the muscles in her shoulders. There was more space to move here and the small clusters of nobles kept their distance from one another to keep from sharing their secrets.

Or any of their words for that matter. Under the rules of The Game even the casual parlance between friends were guarded as closely as a hand in Wicked Grace. Let them keep their secrets and play their Game, Elanna thought to herself, shrinking away as conversations ceased and eyes fell on the passing Inquisitor.

The servants were worse, she decided in the wake of Orlesian gawks. They would never respect her as an equal but there was power in their awe and a delight in the way the Shems looked the Inquisitor, born a savage and now invited to the Empress’s own Winter Palace. Let them jeer, let them sit smugly as they sipped from crystal goblets, but more than anything let suspicion and doubt unrattle them and their smug superiority they felt over the Dalish.

At the far end of the gardens a crowd had gathered. It was lively with none of the careful guile of the other assembled circles. The sound of genuine laughter put her on edge and made her suspicious, but her curiosity pulled her forward.

Whatever had them so entranced kept their attention even as she approached, forcing Elanna to push past and step around nobles, though when she saw the red and gold figure with the turban she felt her jaw drop. Solas was standing at the center of the crowd, struggling to keep his grin from spreading ear to ear. 

He had the audience as his own captive plaything and many of them were laughing at whatever he had just said.

Elanna furrowed her brow. “So much for a low profile,” she remarked, her tone dry, but the man’s playful demeanor was contagious and her frown was fast turning into a smirk.

His own smile never faltered. “Well, I tried,” he said, pressing an arm across his chest and providing an exaggerated bow. “But it proved more difficult than anticipated.”

“You have a most delightful Elf on retainer,” an Orlesian woman who was furiously batting at herself with a fan told her, her tone near to laughter.

“And Halamshiral has only the most delightful Shems.”

The gathered crowd came together in another round of laughter.

Elanna’s eyes narrowed and she turned a suspicious gaze on the crowd. Putting a hand on Solas’s arm she said, “Can I speak to you for a moment?”

Solas’s eyes flickered like two gleaming gems. “I was counting on it.” He looked back at the assembled gentry. “Alas I must bid you all adieu for now.”

There were some grumbles, some nods, some jokes, all sounds coming together too quickly to be coherent.

She did not understand what was going on and before she could begin to wrap her head around it Solas had a grip on her arm and was leading her away, off the stone and pebble paths, away from the fountains and the flickering yellow torches. They were away from the crowds, under brush and hedge, the cool grass beneath them lightening all the muscles in Elanna’s body.

It was easier to relax this way and Solas only made it that much more pleasant.

Still confused, she asked, “So you going to tell me what that was all about?”

“I apparently have a talent for court.” His voice was insufferably smug.

She shook her head. “You called them Shems. Right to their face.”

“As far as they were concerned I might as well have been a talking monkey. Degrading, to be sure, but when you’re held in such low esteem the strange Elf with the peculiar diction can get away with saying anything he pleases. The more shocking the better.”

“You never struck me as the type to play dog for a bunch of humans…”

Solas shrugged and grinned. “How else do I get to call Shems for what they are?”

In that moment, as she often did, Elanna found herself envying Solas and his time spent in the Fade. He had spent a life in hedges and wild places and yet had managed to glean from his nocturnal visions allt he manners and turn of phrase necessary to excel in all the places she was struggling at the Winter Palace.

“Maybe you should’ve been my teacher,” she huffed.

“And make your mouth even worse in front of our noble hosts?” he scoffed playfully. “I shudder at the thought.”

She growled at him jokingly then turned back to regard the impossibly tall structure that was the Empress’s palace.

“The tutors were a waste of time,” she complained, finding herself all at once slipping back into her role of Elanna as the ball and its strange rules and irritating servants were replaced by the presence of Solas. “I feel like I would’ve done better just being myself.

“It’s always admirable advice. So you’re not enjoying yourself then,” he said more than asked.

Elanna sighed. “No. It’s hot and the people are irritating and everything is so…” strange seemed like too kind a word for it. “Weird.”

Solas chuckled. “Have you learned anything at least?”

“No. I actually have more questions than I started with.”

“Questions are always the best place to start.”

Across the way from them a pair of nobles had snuck away much like they had, though if they noticed the pair of Elves covorting near a hedge they did not show it. The man and woman were sitting on a stone bench beneath a tree with a thin trunk, lost in one another’s eyes with their hands folded over one another’s, pressed up against their chests.

They were too far away to hear whatever they were saying, but on occasion they would lean in for a gentle kiss that seemed to reinvigorate their secret conversation.

“Like that,” she groaned, pointing at the couple. “What is that?”

“A pair of doting lovers, I presume.”

Elanna rolled her eyes. “No, that kissing. That’s not even kissing. I’ve seen so many Orlesians do that tonight.”

“Go on.”

“Maybe Orlesians are just different. In my clan when two people kissed they looked like they were trying to eat each other.”

Solas laughed. Elanna’s mournful pouting was interrupted when she was pulled in close to him, his arms slipping around her waist, her back pressed to his chest.

“There are many kinds of kisses, vhenan. They are like fine wines, each with their own occasion.”

“Go on,” she mimicked, enjoying the warmth of him and tucking her arms under his. As he spoke his breath was hot upon her neck.

“There are simple, courteous kisses,” he explained, pausing to kiss the back of her head, “feather light things that exist as a reminder, like a light snack.”

“I suppose I can see that.”

“There are deep, passionate kisses. Somber things that overcome the entire body until you become entwined as one.”

Elanna shifted in his grip and looked up at him. “I like that one.”

Her lips quivered in anticipation that he would comply and felt ready to melt into his arms when his lips grazed hers. But they were there for only a single moment, his mouth closing about hers in a single motion before he pulled back, the tip of his tongue racing across her lips.

She sat staring at him, teased, unsatisfied and wanting more, a fire beginning to race in her cheeks and up her spine.

“And what was that one then?” she demanded impatiently when no answer was coming.

Solas grinned with narrowed eyes. “The promise of things to come, vhenan,” he pressed his forehead against hers and pinched her side. She yelped in as quiet a tone as she could and struggled to keep from squirming away. “A taste to whet the appetite for later.”

Elanna pouted and tried to lean in for another kiss but Solas pulled away.

“Not now,” he insisted, his voice firm and commanding that somehow made her want it all the more.

“Why not?” her voice had become girlish and carried a hint of a whine.

“Because you’re late.”

She stared at him quizzically for several long moments, until the thrumming of her heart finally stopped and she realized the summoning bells of the Winter Palace were beating their call. In a pout she bobbed up and down and groaned.

“I’m late already,” she protested, trying to pull him in. “Show me more and I’ll be fashionably late.”

Solas grinned and planted a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Later, vhenan,” his tone left no room for argument once again, making it hurt all the more to let him go. “I promise.”

She looked over at the Winter Palace. Through the ferns and bushes she could see the gentry filing back into the rotunda and she sighed, accepting her place among them.

“You better keep your word,” she insisted, batting at him playfully.

“You won’t be disappointed.”

The throb that caused in her as she let him go told her that she wouldn’t be.


End file.
